UBS’s CMBS Co-Heads Said to Depart After One Week in Posts

April 4 (Bloomberg) -- Brett Ersoff and John Herman, who
took over the commercial-mortgage bond group at UBS AG last week
after the group’s head departed for Bank of America Corp., have
left the bank, said two people familiar with the moves who asked
not to be identified because they haven’t been announced.

Ersoff and Herman were named co-heads of real-estate
finance and mortgage-backed securities after Kenneth Cohen
exited to become the global head of commercial real estate at
Bank of America in New York, UBS confirmed on March 28.

Switzerland’s largest lender is losing the bankers after
overhauling compensation rules to limit risk. UBS cut its 2012
bonus pool, including deferred pay, by 7 percent to 2.5 billion
Swiss francs ($2.75 billion), the bank said Feb. 5. About 500
million francs of that will be paid in contingent capital bonds
that would be written off if the common-equity ratio falls below
7 percent or UBS needs a bailout.

Megan Stinson, a spokeswoman for UBS in New York, said she
couldn’t comment on the latest departures, which were reported
earlier today by Securitization Intelligence. Ersoff declined
to comment and Herman couldn’t immediately be reached.

Zurich-based UBS is losing staff in the commercial-mortgage
bond group as sales of the debt soar to the highest since 2007,
with issuance poised to climb more than 50 percent to $70
billion in 2013, according to Credit Suisse Group AG.

Cohen’s Departure

Cohen, who arrived at UBS less than two years ago and
previously oversaw commercial-mortgage backed securities at
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., is joining Bank of America as the
second-biggest U.S. lender seeks to boost its market share in
packaging loans linked to skyscrapers, hotels and shopping malls
into bonds.

Eighth-ranked Bank of America underwrote $2.3 billion in
mortgages in 2012, compared with $4.1 billion for No. 4 UBS,
according to the Commercial Mortgage Alert, an industry
newsletter.

UBS is partnering with Barclays Plc to offer a $1.3 billion
commercial-mortgage bond deal this week, according to people
familiar with the sale.